The microfluidics technology is typically identified by employing devices having one or more channels with at least one dimension less than 1 millimeter and minute amounts of fluids, typically in the order of nano- and pico-liters.
Microfluidics is used in various fields, such as chemical and biological reactions and analysis or ink jet nozzles fabrication.
Microfluidics technologies enable to develop small, cost effective and efficient systems, such as a lab-on-a-chip where entire complex chemical management and analysis systems can be created in a microfluidic chip and interfaced with, for example, electronics and optical detection systems.
Applying microfluidics to visualize microscopic objects was disclosed for example, in US applications 2005/0271548 or 2007/207061 to Yang et al., and a blood cytometer was described, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 6,097,485 to Lievan or U.S. Pat. No. 6,959,618 to Larsen. U.S. Pat. No. 7,312,085 to Hou-Pu et al. discloses apparatus, methods and kits for microfluidic manipulation and/or detection of particles such as cells and/or beads.
An apparatus and methods using a fluid having viscoelastic properties such that infusing a fluidic suspension of particles in a microchannel increases the concentration of the particles in a focus region inside the microchannel (‘viscoelastic focusing’) is disclosed in A. M. Leshansky, A. Bransky, N. Korin, and U. Dinnar, Tunable Nonlinear Viscoelastic “Focusing” in a Microfluidic Device, Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 234501 (2007) and in PCT application WO2008/149365 of which a co-inventor (Bransky) is the inventor of the present invention.